Lore:In the ancient civilization of Shurima, the mage called Xerath practiced magic with undying passion. He believed that with enough magical power, he could gaze into the heart of Runeterra to know the secrets of history and the universe beyond. Such magic was beyond the limitations of a mortal body, but Xerath obsessively pursued a path to infinite power nonetheless. With every breakthrough he grew more and more powerful, yet not without consequence. Xerath's increasing arcane abilities wrought havoc on his physical form. Desperate, he undertook a dangerous ritual to transcend his dying body. The outcome would be immortality or self-destruction. Violent magic unleashed during the ritual caused devastation throughout Shurima, but when the dust settled, Xerath emerged as an ascended being of pure arcane energy.Free of flesh and bone, Xerath held nearly infinite power at his command. However, in the wake of his chaotic ritual, the mages of Shurima feared his careless disregard for life would bring ruin to the kingdom. After a terrible struggle they subdued Xerath, but they could not destroy his ascended form. Instead they trapped him within an enchanted sarcophagus and sealed him in an underground tomb. Eons passed, civilizations rose and fell, and Xerath's imprisonment was lost to memory. For centuries, Xerath's vast power tore away at the sarcophagus and weakened its spell. Finally, he willed forth a burst of magic that shattered his prison, but its core remained, containing Xerath and his power within its broken pieces. Seeking to rid himself of this burden, he was drawn to the magic of Valoran's nexuses and found he could absorb their power. Yet the nexuses had gatekeepers: petty mages known as summoners. Xerath knew his key to true freedom from his prison lay in gaining their trust, and he offered his power to the League of Legends.“I have no need for vengeance. Time has brought ruin to the mages of Shurima and I alone remain.” – Xerath, the Magus AscendantAbilities:Ascended Form (Passive): Xerath feeds on arcane power, making him increasingly resilient to physical harm. He converts a percentage of his Ability Power into Armor.Arcanopulse: Fires a long-range beam of energy, dealing magic damage to all targets hit.Locus of Power: Xerath anchors himself to source of magical power, increasing the range of all spells and granting him bonus % Magic Penetration. Although he is immobilized while Locus of Power is active, his movement speed increases upon disabling the ability.Mage Chains: Deals magic damage to an enemy and marks them with Unstable Magic. The next spell Xerath strikes this enemy with stuns them.Arcane Barrage: Calls down a blast of arcane energy, dealing magic damage to all enemies in an area. May be cast up to three times before going on cooldown.

Here is Riot's official post on the new champion posted earlier this morning.

Summoners!

Occasionally we debut future champions a bit ahead of time because we’re super excited about them and we just can’t contain ourselves!

Let us introduce you to our take on the Asian legend of The Nine Tails Fox:

We think her combination of strength, beauty, power and grace will yield a fun and amazing champion to play! While she is very early in development, here’s a little sneak peak at what she’ll be able to do:

Based on the story of a fox who wanted nothing more than to become human, this champion will be a ranged caster who utilizes her Fox Bead to decimate her opponents on the battlefield. She’s going to be extremely agile and versatile, using her nine tails to maneuver in and out of combat with style and grace. She will also make use of her Fox Fire, where she will summon balls of fire which will seek out and destroy nearby enemies.

She’s very early in development, so as always her abilities and artwork are subject to change, but we hope you’re as excited about her as we are!

She is tentatively named "Kumiho" and is based off the mystical Nine-Tailed Fox.

Here is a link to the Korean League of Legends website that the image is taken from. The champion, much how Wukong was aimed at the growing Chinese audience, is intended to stimulate the new Korean player base.

EDIT: Here is a rough translation of the article by the lovely redditor Thisizterry. Please remember this isn't an exact translation and thus isn't "official".

[11:48] Korean style champion Gumiho (name unfinished)'s artwork is released to the public for the first time. Shes Pretty (derp de derp koreans) She seems like a female magic using champion.

First off, if you look at her hair style, it's in a pony tail and has a norigae (some traditional hair ornament). Her shoes also have a Korean concept. Her clothes are also Korean in style and the background is a full moon. The representative (im guessing its referring to the korean dude in the article) describes her as a Korean style champion.

They will release more information on the champion in the future.

< blabla [11:50] some stuff about contributing to society through gumiho champ sales for 6 months>

[11:58] We'll explain Gumiho's character concept. We continuously contacted the korea branch and discussed, and came up with what we think is suitable.

Paul somethinoranother producerdude said She will be a balance between strength and "beautiful" magic. We anticipate that she will have a playstyle that reflects her legendary backround (from some cultural korean stuff). Gumiho will be a long range caster, who overpowers her enemies. If speed and multiple abilities is the key word, engaging her enemies with her nine tails and stylish skills are her specialties. She will use her fox ball and summon fireballs to shoot at her enemies.

Shes still in the developmental stages but I;m happy to introduce her concept. Not only korean gamers, but we believe she will be popular with gamers around the world.

Xerath, the Magus Ascendant, is our newest mage-type character in League of Legends. His playstyle offers a new way to perform the mage-carry role; long range barrages and sieging.

The cornerstone of this is in his ability Locus of Power. This makes Xerath immobile, but gives his spells massively increased range and defense penetration. This really allows him to set up and barrage an area before becoming mobile again to perform a more standard mage role.

Using this range gameplay, Xerath has wide-area spells he can use to really saturate an area with major damage. Arcanopulse, his bread-and-butter ability, shoots a short-delay beam at the area, zapping anyone hit for significant damage. Arcane Barrage, his ultimate, allows him to launch up to three massive explosions at a long range, both doing area denial and good team damage. To protect himself, Mage Chains is a reliable single-target spell that will allow Xerath to stun an enemy if he hits him with a subsequent spell.

Xerath is something we liken to a Howitzer or artillery piece. He should really appeal to people who enjoy very long ranges and like aiming skillshots and leading targets. We’re excited to offer a new mage paradigm to League of Legends, and will be continuing to add new ways to play existing roles into the game.

The moment that you’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! Today, you’ll step onto the battlefield to face off against your opponents on the Crystal Scar! Get ready to capture, defend and dominate your enemies in this brand new game mode for League of Legends!

We promised to deliver the unexpected in 2011, and today we make good on that claim.

Nearly a year in the making, League of Legends: Dominion represents the largest and most ambitious update to League of Legends since its launch in October of 2009. In Dominion, summoners do battle on a brand new map, the Crystal Scar, and vie for control over five Capture Points, a style of play never before attempted in the League of Legends universe.

League of Legends: Dominion is the latest example of our ongoing commitment to bringing you the best of the MOBA genre in new and innovative ways. You’ve been requesting new battlefields upon which to test your skills, and today you’ll do battle not only on a brand new Field of Justice, but in an entirely new and groundbreaking game mode!

Prepare yourselves, summoners! The battle for the Crystal Scar has officially begun!

Spectator has been and is still being worked on. It's getting much closer to completion. We never said it was "finished."

Something like Spectator doesn't really have a hype plan the same way that Dominion did. Certainly, Spectator is a big deal, but this isn't something we'd tease over the course of a month and release developer diaries on every three days.

All I can really say is we're getting much closer. I know that's not very concrete, but it's the best I can give you guys right now.

It’s Monday again here in Runeterra, which makes it time for another pair of awesome skins. Whether you’re feeling a little cavalier or you’re up for a bit of weird science, this week’s lineup should really hit the spot.

Kicking off this week is the long-awaited and highly-anticipated Winged Hussar Xin Zhao! Whether you’re a history buff who wants to pick up the League of Legends tribute to these mighty warriors, or you’re just a fan of dramatic medieval body armor, you’ll definitely want to snag this skin for the Seneschal of Demacia!

On the other hand, if you’re more of the academic type, why not don the mantle of unhinged scientist for a spell. If you’ve got an undeniable urge to combine a few chemicals of dubious origin, the all-new Mad Scientist Singed skin should really help you to scratch that itch. Just remember that Riot Games does not endorse the premature human testing of any questionable chemical concoctions.

Click on the Skins tab in the Store to purchase and unlock these new skins!

Before the Riven patch, we announced that we’ll be patching in 3-week cycles for the next two champions. With that said, our next champion Xerath will not be coming out tonight and patch notes for this game update will be available closer to the release date as to provide you with the most recent changes. Following Xerath, we’ll return to our normal 2-week content cycle. Until then, enjoy an exciting week, full of action packed battles on the newest battlefield!

Ghost on over to the Crystal Scar for some fierce fights in League of Legends: Dominion!

I have been following a number of threads which generally ask what we're doing about Skarner, where the general point of view is that he's difficult to do well on. The short answer is that, generally, I'm watching Skarner very carefully because I don't think his full potential is quite realized yet, at least not widely.

That said, in the short term I DO STRONGLY feel that Skarner's ability to jungle is weaker than I intended. Throughout his development, Skarner was annihilating jungle clear times in extreme safety and I had to make repeated nerfs to bring him in line. We went too far in the opposite direction by the time of his release. I would like improve the safety of Skarner's jungle, without making large impacts to his overall performance outside of it.

A subpoint--he's super-dependent on Blue Buff for any kind of jungling. I'd like to fix that as well--lowering Q's mana cost might be the safest route.

We have also seen how top lane Skarner can be pretty powerful. So we have to be careful with buffs or we'll quickly find ourselves in trouble. His E, which a lot of players find to be sort of "out of place" was in part designed to give him a lane sustain option, and that has worked out as expected here.

---

There are some common points about Skarner which I would like to address.

"I am frustrated by having to cast Crystal Slash twice before I get a slow off."The strength of Skarner's "perma-slow" is only excused by the fact that he's got to both close to a target and then stick on them before his slow kicks in. That said, I think Skarner actually just gets away with a lot of power here, as things like Red Buff, Gunblade, or Impale will all give him time to energize himself and start slowing a lot. Flash will still cause you to escape Skarner--but I can't have the goal for balance be "beats flash".

"I am frustrated by losing Crystalline Exoskeleton's benefits when I get attacked."Similar to the above, the stats you gain are that much higher because of this weakness. Getting AP, Armor, and MR will give you more resiliency here. You also don't need a full duration from this skill for it to be highly beneficial in combat. The strategic movement granted by a the full duration of the buff is also really strong on both Summoner's Rift and Dominion.

"Impale's duration is too short."After extensive playtests at various numbers here, I chose 1.5 because it most consistently provided satisfaction for Skarner without causing his victim to punch his monitor in frustration. Generally. I agree that R could be longer without making Skarner OP... but does it need to be for this skill to be fun, interesting, and satisfying? If the goal is simply that Skarner overall needs buffs, I wouldn't start here.

"Let me do melee attacks during Impale."Impale's full value comes from repositioning an enemy. You can't do that while autoattacking that champion, so I force you to give up autoattacks in that time. (Admittedly with a lot of skill you could still move/attack/move to get some movement off but that's trickier than I would like the skill to be and very conflicted.) Similarly, you can't cast E and move so the same reasoning applies. Note that Q and W don't stop movement and are enabled in this time. If I wanted to design a skill where you just cc'd a target and could go to town on that target... well... it would be a different skill from Impale.

"Fracture is a dangling skill, I don't know how to use it."Fracture was included in part so that Skarner wouldn't be hopeless in lane. He's actually quite good as a top solo lane, dependent on this skill, so I would say mission accomplished. If you focus on Q and W, I won't blame you, I often will level those first myself. 1-point in Fracture also gives you a lot of poking utility in Dominion, and picking it early is one way to go about jungling.

"Let me cast Fracture while moving!"This has a lot of good reasoning behind it. It's more appropriate for Skarner (and similar champions like Udyr and Renekton) to get instant-cast spells, but Fracture specifically isn't the kind of spell I'd normally make instant-cast. What I specifically don't like is how novice Skarner players will choose to cast E instead of keeping pace on their target, landing the E but giving up a future Q or autoattacks. That feels like a trap to me, so I'm pretty inclined to look for a fix here.

The Seneschal of Demacia is here to let you know that the Winged Hussars are on the lookout for new recruits! The legendary Winged Hussars will be opening up their books to new members starting this Monday, the 26th of September, so don’t miss roll call! If you’re ready to don your set of historical-inspired armor, you’ll be pleased Winged Hussar Xin Zhao is on the march!

The League of Legends wants you, summoner! Do you have what it takes to join the ranks of these elite knights?!

At Riot Games a big part of our corporate culture is breaking down barriers through innovation. And, while we’re on the subject, this seems like as good a time as any to introduce our latest champion. Meet Xerath, the Magus Ascendant. Previously one of the most powerful mages in Valoran, Xerath’s learned the hard way just what sort of trouble accepting constraints – in this case a gigantic, enchanted sarcophagus – can get you into.

Of course, even a chained Magus Ascendant is somebody you want to avoid underestimating.

Those of you who are familiar with our general operating procedure here at Riot Games know that we tend to spend a fair bit of time in front of the camera. You’re also probably aware that we like to give things away for free. Well we’re pleased to announce that, as of today, you can get the Unchained Alistar skin for free simply by subscribing to the Riot Games channel on YouTube.

That’s right, if you subscribe to the Riot Games YouTube channel, you’ll receive this handsome bovine and his particularly menacing Unchained Alistar skin for free! Luckily for all of us, the bull’s not camera shy!

Here’s how to claim yours:

Point your browser to the Unchained Alistar webpage.

Enter your Username and Password to login to your League of Legends account.

Season One was a stellar beginning for the League of Legends competitive scene, but it was just the start of things to come. We’re proud to announce a new chapter in the League of Legends story: the Season Two Pre-Season!

What is a Pre-Season?A pre-season is the period between regular seasons that gives summoners a chance to build up teams and practice in anticipation for the season to come. Just like many real-world sports, it’s a time to hone your skills and get ready for a fresh start.

How Does The Pre-Season Affect Me?Great question! Immediately, your day-to-day life won’t change much from Season One. However, once we transition from the Pre-Season to Season Two, there are some important details about Ranked games you should know.

Solo Ranked Queues: Keep active, summoners! Your Solo Ranked Elo during the Pre-Season will carry over to Season Two.

Pre-made Queues: If you’re active in pre-made Queue play, you’ve noticed individual Elo tracking and Ladders aren’t the best way to track how a pre-made group ranks against other groups. In Season Two, we’re going to dramatically improve the way we display and track this information. As such, we’re going to be resetting pre-made Elo at the start of Season Two to make way for some changes!

What’s the Deal with Season Two?As we begin to transition into Season Two, we’ll have more information on all of them available for you, but for now, our focus is on supporting you throughout the Pre-Season.

Season Two is on the way, summoners, but until then, keep your skills sharp and your wits at the ready on the Fields of Justice!

As we previously announced, we’ll be opening testing windows on our platform during off-peak hours where League of Legends: Dominion will be available for play. This will allow us to monitor platform stability and gather data in preparation for the full release of Dominion.

This first testing window for our limited League of Legends: Dominion beta test is scheduled for todaySeptember 21 at 08:00AMPacific Time. The new game mode will be available for play for approximately two hours. After this window is over, Dominion will be switched off while we analyze the data. There will be more opportunities to help test our new game mode as we move closer to release so stay tuned for more announcements.

We've heard your feedback, and as a part of our ongoing commitment to making League of Legends an even more fun and awesome experience for players of all preferences, we are officially introducing Draft Mode into Normal Games! Now you can play like the pros without any impact on your ranked rating!For those unfamiliar with how Draft Mode works, at champion select, each team has one player that is designated as the captain. The two captains will then have the opportunity to ban champions from play. Following the bans, teams will then take turns selecting the remaining champions, with every choice visible to the opposition so they can counter-pick as they see fit. This type of insight makes for more well-rounded matches and reactive gameplay.Prefer regular Blind Pick Mode? Not to worry! Blind Pick will still be an option in Normal games.

EDIT: Turns out this is old information from the patch the removed it. It has been pointed out in this thread that the item had its stats changed a while back. Sorry for the confusion.

Snagged a screen shot of someone running around with an Innervating Locket in a game today as a result of a DC. As the latest JoJ mentions its possible return, are these the sort of numbers and stats we might be looking forward to?

New Stats:

+375 Health

+500 Mana

UNIQUE AURA: Restores 9 mana to nearby allies every 5 seconds.

UNIQUE PASSIVE: Reduces Ability Cooldowns by 10%

UNIQUE PASSIVE: Using an ability grants 20 mana to you over 2 seconds. This effect has a 3 second cooldown.

With the launch of pre-season, we’ve noticed a couple problems with ranked queues that we’re going to be adjusting to help make sure that ranked games are fun and that the competitive ladder remains healthy.

Firstly, we’ve noticed that the average Elo is off from where we expected it to be (around 1200). More specifically, we noticed that our reset calculations didn‘t take into account Elo decay in the system. To account for this deflation problem, we’ll be increasing the 5v5 Solo Elo of those players who played at least 5 ranked games last season by 15 points.

Secondly, the Ranked Wins and Losses were not properly reset after we archived them during the Riven patch. We will be resetting these numbers to reflect the appropriate number of wins and losses players have accrued since the patch this week to reinforce the feeling of a new start.

Unfortunately, these changes must be done while the servers are offline. In order to reduce the impact of these issues on our pre-season, we will be disabling Ranked Queues this weekend. While the rank queues are disabled, we will be temporarily enabling the ability to play Normal Games with Draft Mode. We will be doing maintenance early next week in order to repair ranked queues so they can be re-enabled.

We are closing in on the release of League of Legends: Dominion. Soon you will be able to join your friends and allies in fast-paced, action-packed battles for supremacy on the Crystal Scar.

And so, in preparation for the launch of the new game mode, we are planning to enter a limited beta test period for League of Legends: Dominion. During this time, Dominion will be available for play by all summoners only during limited testing windows at off-peak hours. We will keep you informed of these testing sessions as they occur, and our goal is to increase the availability of Dominion leading up to its full launch.

The purpose of this testing period is to ensure Dominion rolls out smoothly, so that hundreds of thousands of players can enjoy it at the same time – not a small feat!

Our aim is to make Dominion fully available as soon as we have satisfied all of goals for release through this beta testing period. Stay tuned for further information on these testing windows.